All the President's money

All the President's money

By Donna K. Woodward

MEDAN, North Sumatra: Serious ethical questions have arisen
about President Abdurrahman Wahid's ideas on fund raising, as
illustrated by the Bulog scandal and Bruneigate.

Although the President and the foreign minister may be men of
integrity on a personal level, they have a blind spot when it
comes to believing they have the right to use their positions to
raise funds secretly to support a favorite cause, however
worthwhile that cause might seem.

They are insensitive to the need for them to be beyond
reproach in matters related to financial corruption, nepotism and
abuse of authority.

While officiating at the openings of several new industrial
plants in East Java on Aug. 25, President Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus
Dur) called on the people to give his Cabinet members a chance to
prove themselves. This is a consideration the President is
entitled to.

But people are entitled to ask certain things of the President
and his men in return. For example: while in East Java, did the
President or any of his group (i.e. his government team, his
political party representatives, his family member or friends)
receive any funds or donations in kind from the companies they
opened?

After all, this is said to have been one of Soeharto's usual
ways of stuffing his pockets. It is time to ask the President to
articulate his views on the ethics of fund-raising by government
employees, whether by the President himself or a lower level
employee, and whether the money is for private needs, government
use, or partisan political purposes.

Does the President believe it is acceptable for him or other
officials at any level of government to receive unreported money
from private persons (including corporate executives), religious
or social organizations, foreign governments or other foreign
sources?

Does the President believe it is acceptable for him or other
officials at any level of government to accept private donations
of any kind (cash, children's tuition, expensive holidays) for
performing official, quasi-official, or ceremonial tasks?

Is it acceptable for government employees of any level to
solicit or accept funds from companies to purchase needed office
equipment or to pay for employees' official travel expenses?

Is it acceptable for employees of government bureaus to
process documents more quickly or expedite service for persons or
organizations who pay extra fees?

Some will hold that these practices are not wrong; they are
time-honored ways of compensating for low salaries and low
departmental budgets.

But such practices are undesirable for several reasons. Funds
that enter the bureaucracy (or the accounts of employees) outside
official budgetary channels create a distorted picture of the
real needs and real income of the government and the real cost of
doing business.

This system enables government departments and quasi-
government organizations to amass funds and maintain private
treasuries, giving some bureaucrats uncontrolled discretion to
disburse these funds.

The results endanger democracy; to appreciate this danger in
the extreme we need only consider the violence now blanketing the
country -- violence that is believed to be partially paid for by
breakaway soldiers with access to secret caches of money.

The most harmful long-term effect of institutionalizing these
methods of economic survival is that this system perpetuates a
mind-set of beggary in the bureaucracy.

"Please can you give a little coffee money?", "To complete
your documents we need to meet the minister in Jakarta and will
need travel funds."

"Our military budget is so small, please pay for our new
weapons." There is nothing shameful about needing financial
assistance. However, systemic dependence on undercover handouts
to meet basic needs, especially by those who ostensibly are
respected wage earners (i.e. government employees) destroys self-
respect and dignity.

This writer has long wondered whether the amount of money that
now circulates between companies and government officials via
official and unofficial channels might not be enough to give
members of the civil service, police and military proper wages,
if the money were collected and distributed transparently and
equitably as official wages instead of in the customary ways.

Those ways allow some public servants to become feloniously
wealthy and condemn others to a life of either petty corruption
or poverty. This is not a choice a government employee should
have to make.

Accepting donations for performing official or ceremonial
tasks has long been government practice. But it is a form of
fund-raising that is incompatible with good governance. Unless
the practice is expressly prohibited by and at the highest level
of the bureaucracy, financial transparency and accountability
will elude the government. Corruption will not be eradicated.

Civil servants' self-respect cannot be restored. What will it
take to convince Gus Dur's government to take a position on this
issue? Will it take a general strike to convince the government
that it must quickly find a way to redirect the illegal fees and
nonbudgetary income and those ever-so welcome private donations
to the state budget for better wages for government workers?

The writer, an attorney and former American diplomat at the
U.S. Consulate General in Medan, is president director of PT Far
Horizons management consultancy firm.